Down the Yellowstone Trail

Junction of US 12 and US 89 East of White Sulphur
Springs, MT

I continued east on US 12. It
parallels the Musselshell River between Checkerboard, MT, and
Melstone, MT. Then it crosses badlands to Forsyth, MT, and follows
the Yellowstone River to Miles City, MT. These are southern
tributaries of the Missouri River.

From Forsyth, MT, to Eau Claire, WI, US 12 follows the Yellowstone
Trail laid out by a trail-booster association in the days of named
highways.

I found this plaque way back in the turnout on US 2 at the summit
of Marias Pass:

A 56-mile section of highway over Marias Pass was the last
section of the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway to be
completed. Prior to the completion of this section in 1930,
automobiles were loaded onto railcars and transported from one side
of the pass to the other. The Theodore Roosevelt International
Highway extends 4.060 miles from Portland Maine, to Portland,
Oregon, by way of Ontario, Canada. Now, this was strange to me because I had never heard
of the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway. As it turns out, there
was such a designation.

By the mid 1920's, trail associations had
named over 250 routes. They
included transcontinental routes, such as the Dixie Overland Highway
(Savannah, Georgia, to San Diego), the Lee Highway (Washington, D.C.,
to San Diego), the Old Spanish Trail (St. Augustine, Florida, to San
Diego), the Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway (New York City to Los
Angeles), the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway (Portland,
Maine, to Portland, Oregon, with a Canadian stretch through Ontario),
and the Yellowstone Trail (Boston to Seattle).

[Weingroff, Richard F. "From Names to Numbers: The Origins of
the
U.S. Numbered Highway System." AASHTO Quarterly N. vol. (Spring
1997): 274 pars. Online. Internet. 8 Sep. 2004. Available http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/numbers.htm.]
Also, there was the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Memorial Highway
(US 6), which was known as the Roosevelt Memorial Highway in the 1930s,
but there was no connection with the Theodore Roosevelt International
Highway -- geographic or otherwise. The same must be said for the
National Roosevelt Midland Trail, which was utterly dismembered to
establish the numbered highway system.

Before there were numbered highways in the US, there were named
highways such as the National Road (US 40), the Lincoln Highway (US
30), and even the Yellowstone Trail (US 12). These were planned and
named by
interstate booster associations. The associations mostly folded in the
Great Depression when their trail designations were made obsolete by
the numbered highway system; nevertheless, in places, several manage to
eke out a marginal existence. You
can find a wealth of material about them on the Internet. The
alignments of the old named routes changed from year to year. The
numbered routes, which superseded them, were not intended to owe any
allegiance to the old named routes. The numbered routes were generally
more
direct than the named routes and were only approximately
congruent with them.

I have heard US 2 referred to as the Hi-Line in the same way that I
have heard old US 66 called the Mother Road, but these nicknames
came after the numbering system.

With the advent of the interstates, old US 66 was decommissioned
entirely (possibly as a delayed reaction to the rancor of its
inception) and replaced by a series of interstate routes. I 70
supplanted US 40, I 80 took the place of US 30, and I 94 and I 90
absorbed traffic from northerly east-west routes such as US 2 and US
12.

US 12 in Montana

The route east lacks rain in the shadow cast by the Rocky
Mountains along the Continental Divide to the west. On the upper
Musselshell, some source of water seems to nourish cottonwoods in
the creek bottoms. Perhaps there are springs. Things are dry for a
good ways on either side of Miles City, MT. You don't really see
row crops until after you cross the Missouri River itself in the
middle of South Dakota at Mobridge.

Cow Country

In the 1880s, days of the open range, many a roundup outfit
worked this country. The spring roundup gathered the cattle in
order to brand and tally the calf crop. The fall roundup gathered
beef critters for shipping.

An outfit consisted of the captain, the riders, the "reps" from
neighboring ranges, the cavvy or horse herd in charge of the day
herder and night hawk, the four horse chuck wagon piloted by the
cook and the bed wagon driven by his flunky. Camp moved each
day.

The cowboys rode circle in the morning, combing the breaks and
coulees for cattle and heading them toward the central point to
form a herd. In the afternoons of spring roundup the guards kept
the herd together, the cutters split out the cows with calves, the
ropers dabbed their loops on the calves, took a couple of dally
welts around the saddle horn and dragged 'em to the fire. There the
calf wrestlers flanked and flopped them, and the brander decorated
them with ear notches, or dew laps, and a hot iron. It wasn't all
sunshine and roses.

Marker Erected by Montana Department
of Transportation

The Jersey Lilly, Ingomar, MT

"The town of Ingomar is located between Roundup and Forsyth
on
US 12 in east-central Montana." That about says it and probably
tells you all you need to know about it and maybe even more than
you wanted to know. However, if you stop at:

... you will discover it to be a beehive of activity and the
hub of
society for miles around -- not your wimpy Midwestern miles either
but honest to God Montana miles -- and I must point out as well
that they do serve Moose
Drool.

Ingomar has no paved streets and reposes upon the open range. You
have to cross cattle grates on either side of the rail grade,
getting into town from the highway. What attracted my attention was
their roadside marker, which quoted a few stanzas from the Ingomar brochure.

I tented four nights in Miles City, MT, at:

Big Sky Campground
1294 US 12
Miles City, MT 59301
406-234-1511

The reason for the extended stay was to regain confidence in the
mechanical worthiness of my motorcycle. The voltmeter on the
dashboard indicated that the battery wasn't charging, coming into
Forsyth, MT. I ordered a new voltage regulator, waited until it
arrived, and installed it before riding the bike. Then I fiddled
with the electrical wiring for a couple of days, trying to make the
voltmeter work. Cleaning some contacts ultimately turned the
trick.

Petrified Wood Park, Lemmon, SD

Finally one comes to the Petrified Wood Park in Lemmon, SD. What can one
say? Here were collected tons of stones from the surrounding
landscape as though the city's boosters had hoped to corner the
market. Here the rubble was glued to the outside surfaces of a
whole city block-full of cement obelisks, a museum, and a gas
station in a technique which might as well be named paleontological
appliqué.

US 12 in South Dakota

Here it is -- the nub, the nut, the moral of the story I've
been telling: The more things change-- the more they
stay the same.

One sees a lot of motorhomes the size of Greyhound buses coming
down the road, but one notices a lot more sitting in campgrounds.
With fuel tanks in excess of 100 gallons and ranges approaching a
thousand miles, these behemoths, like the old-time passenger
trains, are built to travel the long haul. In the heyday of
railroads, the idle (rich or not) lavished weeks on their tour of
Glacier Park by horseback. It's not so different for an RV owner to
round up partners, cart them all off to one well known, scenic
destination, and spend a large portion of the season there.

That's not the way it is with automobile touring! You need food,
fuel, and a place to sleep because you can't take it with you like
a railroad -- like a motorhome rolling down the interstate. It's
more like piloting a steamboat up a river. You have to tie up every
once in while to chop firewood, to duck windy weather, and to wait
out the dark. You're a lot more dependent on the path you have to
take.

Roadside attractions are the tinkling echoes of times gone by. The
modern traveler doesn't apprehend the need. His trip is only about
where he's bound. It's not about the territory he hurries through.
Still, those of us journeying more lightly on the land can stop to see
something before the emptiness swallows it.

Monument: Sacagawea Memorial, Mobridge, SD

Sacagawea (Sacajawea, Sakakawea), the Shoshone interpreter of
the Lewis and Clark Expedition, is presumed to have been buried at
Fort Manuel, which is now mostly inundated by Lake Oahe. This is
her memorial.

Monument: Sitting Bull's Grave, Mobridge, SD

At the same site as the Sacagawea Memorial on a bluff
overlooking the Oahe Reservoir on the Missouri River at Mobridge,
SD, is the final resting place of Sitting Bull. He was not buried
here
initially. The bust is by the late American sculptor Korczak
Ziolkowski who is best known for his design and early work on the
Crazy Horse Memorial near Custer, SD. The portrait on the nearby marker
is unattributed.

1834 -- 1890

Sitting Bull

Tatanka Iyotake

Sitting Bull was born on the Grand River a few miles west of
Mobridge. His tragic end came at the very place he was born. He was
shot when being arrested because of his alleged involvement with
the Ghost Dance Craze.

Sitting Bull was originally buried at Fort Yates, ND. On April 8,
1953 surviving relatives with the aid of the Dakota Memorial
Association moved his remains to the present location and dedicated
the Memorial Burial Site April 11, 1953.

Chief Kandiyohi, Willmar, MN

"Kandiyohi"

AN IDEALIZED STATUE TYPIFYING THE MEANING OF THE WORD
*

This Indian image first became part of Willmar in 1915,
when
it appeared as the Kandiyohi County Bank symbol. That same year,
artist Eben E. Lawson, commissioned by the bank, created
"Kandiyohi," a smaller sculpture which was the basis for this
larger statue.

In 1929, "Chief Kandiyohi" (a nickname the Indian symbol received,
although there never really was a chief by that name) found a home
with the Bank of Willmar following several bank mergers.

Bank of Willmar President Norman Tallakson contracted to have the
17-foot statue made in 1956. It was mounted on the bank overlooking
Litchfield Avenue for 27 years.

On July 25, 1983, the statue was moved to this site, after it was
donated to the City of Willmar and Kandiyohi County by First
American Bank and Trust of Willmar.

This marker was sponsored by First American Bank
and Trust of Willmar and Erected in 1985* "Where the Buffalo Fish Come"

Expect to spend several hours reading the extensive and
detailed
exhibit notes. There is an audacious attempt cogently to convey
geographic movement of Indian tribes from traditionally assumed
prehistoric origins through the historic diaspora in advance of
European invasion to their present-day reservation holdings. This
is difficult to do without descending to granularity of bands
within tribes. That exhibit focuses on Ojibwa and neighboring
tribes to show how they hopscotched one another throughout the
Midwest much like the Slavic Tribes before the Mongol Hordes in
central Asia.

Part of the day I spent finding stops on ABATE
Wisconsin's 2005 Statewide Poker Run, but I devoted most of my time
to the Chippewa Valley Museum, above. I had hoped to travel
farther, but rain was imminent. I halted for the night at:

It started sprinkling just as I was setting up my tent and never
really let up that night. The next morning, it still showed no
overt signs of stopping. I had passed my last night away from home,
so I folded my tent wet and went on my way. From here, I followed
WI 29 east to Green Bay, leaving the Yellowstone Trail at Abbotsford,
WI, where it turned south to US 10 near Marshfield, WI.

Marker: Geological Center of the Northern Half of the
Western Hemisphere

This spot in Section 14, in the Town of Rietbrock,
Marathon
County is the exact center of the northern half of the Western
Hemisphere. It is here that the 90th meridian of longtitude (sic)
bisects the 45th parallel of latitude, meaning it is exactly
halfway between the North Pole and the Equator, and is a quarter of
the way around the earth from Greenwich, England.

Marathon County Park Commission

The above marker is near the town of Poniatowski, WI. It's not
in town -- nothing much is -- nevertheless,
there's a song about the place by that name. From Poniatowski
by Lou and Peter Berryman:

I asked an old cartographer where he would rather
be
He mumbled there's a place that's always fascinated me
I'll prob'ly mispronounce it he admitted with a sigh
It's P-O-N-I-A-T-O "duh-BULL-yew" S-K-I.

Poniatowski is one of those rare Polish names with a superabundance
of vowels. I have it on good authority that you don't need them
all. Instead, you say the name Pon-uh-TUSK-y.